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088 Hemorroids

When someone I know was dealing with this issue, the question came up – what IS witch hazel? It was prescribed by a doctor, surely it must be a medicine?

In modern chemistry, the active ingredient that provides the desired effect can usually be isolated. We no longer chew on willow bark, we’ve found that aspirin is what we’re after which is listed by it’s molecular name: acetylsalicylic acid. I was used to seeing active ingredients in 2% solutions, to moderate their effects. The plant name and unusually high concentration of witch hazel stood out as red flags.

Do a search for a medicine such as aspirin and you’ll find links to a ridiculous number of scholarly articles regarding it’s efficacy. This is the key word to search for because it describes exactly how well something works.

When performing this search for witch hazel, you find a LOT of red flag websites with ‘natural’ in the URL. If it has been used as a ‘natural astringent’ for thousands of years, where are the studies? You can’t use the Argument from Antiquity and then follow up with “they just haven’t studied it yet.” There is an actual reason that there aren’t any studies proving the use of witch hazel, and it’s called the File Drawer Effect.

The simple explanation is that negative findings don’t usually make it to publication. Scientists use words like “inconclusive” and “no evidence” on the occasion that they publish a paper in which they failed to find a relationship. In other words, it has no special effect.

Anyways, there I was with unabated hemorrhoids after a month of using glorified baby wipes, angrily flicking through google scholar on my iphone. The red flags are there, and I don’t think the science supports witch hazel in lieu of other hemorrhoid medications. If anyone can show me a credible scholarly source regarding the demonstrated efficacy of witch hazel compared to placebo I will take this comic down.

Also this comic was about a friend of mine. I made that perfectly clear, right?

Discussion (22) ¬

A very close friend of mine had them too. He found that being rigorous in the application of the “European” approach to clean-up helped speed recovery. Sure, it’s just an anecdote, but it’s highly plausible.

What do Americans think Europeans do? What on earth is a “European approach” to wiping your bum?

I know the Frogs have those things that are just the job for washing your wellies in, but we are very modern here in the “Old Country” and anyway, we can’t get corncobs.

Witch Hazel is good stuff. It stings, smells of mint, tastes very nasty indeed and is generally everything a good medicine should be. It is also popular for applying to sprains and bruises, where it’s effects are quite unknown but widely believed near-magical.

I believe that “running through the sprinkler naked” is the “European Method” for pretty much everything.
You could also use tea tree oil. That seems to be the other popular “natural” “non-efficacious” remedy for “stuff.”

I do think that they were studying tee tree oil to retard bacterial growth. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360273/table/t3/ Though it sounds like they still need a bigger randomized study, but suggestive. Still, it could be another of those magic tonics that don’t work for one thing, so you try and see if it’ll work on another. Reminding me of a SNL “floor polish/dessert topping” or listerine’s “floor polish/mouth wash/cure for gonorrhea.” I’m at work and for some reason your site is medically relavent and not blocked by the hosptial big brother. Do note that your refusal of witch hazel.. is ancedotal ;). However yeah, it would be nice if they funded a website of all of the failed articles. 😀 That way a quick google search would yeild an end to some gonorrhea cure alls, adding a research site to reduce the uncomfortable minty fresh home trials (though fresh breath on every lady of the evening curing gonorrhea would bring a strange sort of humor). Also for the exhausted exhaulted 3rd student team to come to an unexciting unpublished e”N”d, which I hear is the only way to fight a godzilla meta analysis or Begg.

Well, I suppose, but I was trying to be generic and meant washing instead of wiping with a generic single ply, or even the kittens or clouds brands. You have to get over the “ick” factor, but it works. Or so I’m told.

Oh, well, Europeans might do that sort of thing. Bidets are largely unknown here, like most things French they are regarded as vaguely unhygienic. It was always predictable that the more contact the British had with Europe, the less they would regard themselves as “European” and by now, you’d probably need to be an MP with Cabinet ambitions to regard yourself as “European”.

Nudity is a German thing, by the way, bearing in mind that Scandinavia isn’t Europe. The Brits certainly don’t do it, which is just as well on the evidence

I was pretty sure witch hazel is just good as a very short term pain reliever. I use it on burns or small cuts. Its mostly alcohol. I think the idea is that it would relieve pain while your sores heal naturally. Rather than applying antibiotic or some other kind of medication.

I have no idea why people would think it has the medical properties necessary to cure hemmorhoids in the long-term, but it *is* a proven astringent, which means that it’s a good temporary remedy for acne, which is what I’ve always used it for! I know that alcohol should theoretically be about as strong, but witch hazel manages to hurt less while achieving the same effect.

I’m not sure what this comic is trying to say? The efficacy of Witch Hazel is very well known – as an astringent. There’s no debate about whether it works as an astringent or not – it very clearly does. Witch Hazel wipes don’t purport to cure hemorrhoids, just to relieve symptoms. I suppose you could maybe make the argument that the efficacy of astringents on treating hemorrhoids is unknown, but that has nothing to do with Witch Hazel specifically.

So you won’t believe that Witch Hazel is an astringent unless I show you a peer-reviewed double-blind placebo-controlled study? That’s like saying you won’t believe orange juice is acidic unless I show you a peer-reviewed double-blind placebo-controlled study proving it. Of which none exist, because the acidity of orange juice is so well known and self-evident that such a study would be pointless.

Right, except that wasn’t my point. I never said that witch hazel treats hemorrhoids. I said that a) witch hazel is effective at doing things that astringents do, because it IS an astringent. And that b) Witch Hazels *purported* method of action against hemorrhoids is as an astringent, so c) the question you SHOULD be asking ishether astringents are an effective treatment for hemorrhoids, regardless of what they’re derived from. I have NO disagreement with any other part of your argument, just with the fact that you seem to be taking issue with witch hazel specifically for no reason that I can discern.